Britain's decline is locked in for the long haul

For every other political blogger, this is a busy week. Not me though. Even if I weren’t still dosed up to the eyeballs with painkillers, I still wouldn’t have much to say about the American election. Most of the narratives are a rehash of well understood observations from 2016. The only point worth making is that the left haven’t learned a single thing since, either in the USA or the UK. They’re just not going to.

In real terms, though, for the UK, I don’t see that it makes much difference either way. The global trends look the same regardless of who is in the White House. The writing is already on the wall for Ukraine, and the trend is towards US protectionism and isolationism.

Meanwhile, any attempt to superimpose what happened in America on to British politics won’t hold. There is no galvanising figurehead, and no unity of purpose on the British right. Farage may attempt to ride President Trump’s coattails, but the winning energy won’t rub off on Reform. I don’t see a Tory comeback on the horizon either.

In many ways, the situation is more dire in Britain. The presidential election in the US has seen a huge turnout, while Britain has just seen one of the lowest turnouts for decades. If things continue as they are, I expect that to be repeated in 2029. British democracy is flatlining. Starmer is hardly delivering while Ms Badenoch is wholly uninspiring. I suppose Badenoch could scrape a victory in 2029, but it’s difficult to see what difference it would make.

The trend for Britain is one of further decline. With Ed Miliband in charge of energy and Rachel Reeves in charge of taxation, there’s no other way it can go. To reverse the trend, though, will take more than Olukemi Badenoch is willing to offer, and more than her liberal party will tolerate.

For there to be a reversal of our fortunes we’d need to see a complete rowback on Net Zero, and a dismantling of the Blair regime that gives the courts the power to set policy on everything from energy to immigration. The Tory party, though, is too concerned with Britain’s image on the world stage to give any thought to the national interest. Since managed decline is the only thing on offer, it’s difficult to see voters returning to the ballot box.

Political analysts of all stripes offer their own narratives as to what returned Donald Trump to the White House, but if I could put it down to any one factor, it was the energy behind his campaign. There was a real sense that the stakes were high and that Trump is a man who can turn things around. The sense of hope on the right was palpable.

For a British politician to ignite that same sense of hope; that “things can only get better”, a weary and jaded British public would have to believe it. And how can they when politicians in the last decade have promised so much and delivered so little? Brexit was swept under the rug and business as usually rapidly reasserted itself, and Johnson squandered an eighty seat majority. Trump was able to weave a narrative that his defeat at the last election was not his own doing, but everybody in Britain understands that the Tories lost because they deserved to lose.

In these conditions, the window is wide open for a third party, but that third party space is occupied by Reform which has, in all probability, reached peak already. Nigel Farage turns off as many people as he enthuses, and if I ever had money to bet, I’d wager it all on Reform making none of the necessary structural improvements to survive beyond its ageing leader. As such, the only useful function Reform really serves is to deny Ms Badenoch a stint in Number Ten.

Since Reform will never provide the intellectual foundation for a revolution in politics, it will have to come from within the Tory party. The most likely scenario is that the Tories lose in 2029, and Robert Jenrick makes the running over the following term. By then, he’ll be more seasoned, and will have firmed up his policy platform. One gets a sense that his leadership bid was just a dress rehearsal.

Ultimately, it’s going to take longer than five years for the public to forget the uselessness of the Tories. As we head into winter, and only narrowly escape blackouts, no Tory is in a position to lambast Labour since Net Zero was the flagship policy of four of the last five leaders. Our sky high energy prices are a direct consequence of policy neglect and Tory incompetence bordering on sabotage.

Depressingly, that means we’re in for ten years of hard Labour, and they can do a hell of a lot of damage in that time. Without a u-turn, we could very well see the end of small-hold farming in Britain forever, and with more taxes, borrowing and Net Zero punishment on the way, with no likelihood of immigration woes abating, Britain is in for a tough old time.

This is partly why I’ve joined the Homeland Party. We have ten years to build a new entity that will at least unite all the disparate political nomads on the fringe right. I do not expect it to be electorally significant any time soon, but it can be an influential voice that will shape the debate. I see small parties as quasi-think tanks, generating new ideas and popularising policies. Since Reform isn’t remotely interested in policy, it falls to the rest of us.

During Robert Jenrick’s leadership bid, he reportedly said he would deport all illegal immigrants, and Donald Trump has just been elected promising to do the same. The idea is gaining traction across Europe, and it feels almost inevitable that it will be a mainstream point of view (if it isn’t already). The failure to commit to substantive remigration has cost Reform a lot of support from online activists.

Given the direction of travel, there is every point in firming up remigration policies and pushing for more stringent measures. There are well over a million illegal immigrants who should be removed, but as we see rising sectarianism in our politics, it’s clear that just removing illegals isn’t enough. Immigrants who have no English language skills and no means to usefully contribute to the economy should be encouraged to leave.

Over the last year or so we’re seen some dark portents for the future, with rival immigrant groups fighting each other in the streets over political and tribal disputes in distant lands - which are nothing whatsoever to do with us. This is London's future normal. This is what you get when you completely abandon any kind of selectivity in immigration policy. When you have a surplus of unemployable low IQ males, you get anarchy.

Unless we put a stop to it now, we're going to end up building internment camps because the alternative is low grade civil war between ethnic minorities while the rest of us are spectators - and full riot gear is standard patrol uniform for British police. Meanwhile, it should be recalled that we have a database of tens of thousands of potential terrorists. This is intolerable.

As such, anyone suggesting that Homeland is an extreme party is clearly not giving any real thought to the possible outcomes. We either take robust defensive actions now, or suffer extreme and unhappy consequences. The problems of mass immigration are always more pronounced in times of economic strife - which is only going to get worse, and the other parties have no answers at all. Reform doesn’t even want to have that conversation, so what other choice is there?